Start taxing them more, and we’ll have even fewer. His Majesty: “It takes a damn fool to think that the way to increase yields from an overfished fishery is to send out more boats. Or a Democrat. But I repeat myself.”

The assistant scout leader, Arthur L. Anderson, had stopped to identify a tree on the Nickel Plate Trail in Bunker Hill Sunday afternoon when an attacker approached him from behind and stabbed him in the neck, Indiana State Police said in a statement. Witnesses told police the attack was unprovoked.

Anderson, of Kokomo, Ind., “was doing probably the most innocent thing he could do, leading a group of Boy Scouts,” Indiana State Police Sgt. Tony Slocum said. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Beggin’ the lawman’s pardon, but Mr. Anderson was right where he should be, doin’ what he ought. It were the murderin’ varmint who weren’t were he ought to be.

His Majesty is not troubled. He points out that the lack of family connections among the midichlorially endowed that was imposed by the Jedi Code helped greatly in reducing the number of potential opponents to his rise to power.

Rogues are fun to read about. Richard Sharpe, Mr. Wickham, Flashman, the various demi-monde detectives, the “heist” genre (works like Ocean’s 11 and the Dortmunder novels), the Gray Mouser, Falstaff, even, say, the Duke and the Dauphin, they have all attracted a wide and avid public. Yours truly being part of it. Yours truly is also a Mormon, with a commitment to order and virtue being at the very beating heart of things.

Apologies to any readers who got the vapors reading the post title. It does not, in fact, use a Battlestar Galactica-esque euphemism for the King of Vulgar Words.

Fracking is a process for breaking up oilbearing rock layers to allow more oil to be extracted than would otherwise be the case. It sounds very reasonable, but that didn’t keep a liberal lawmaker from making the claim summarized in the post title.

I do like his use of the term “womenfolk”, though. It lends a certain quaint rustic touch to what would otherwise be merely another mind-bogglingly stupid statement by a ditto politician.

One may speculate on why he isn’t concerned about venereal disease among the menfolk. Feel free to do so in the comments section.